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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188060">hold me closer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggierachael/pseuds/maggierachael'>maggierachael</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>grade school games [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Narcos (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Cory Brooke, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Slow Burn, and cory is an oblivious dweeb, and cory is determined to drag some self-confidence out of him, and some kernels of javi angst too, because i refuse to make people (read: myself) SAD, even if it kills her, he refuses to believe he's a good person despite literally all the evidence to suggest otherwise, idiots to lovers, javi finally gets a chance to REST, javier peña has two left feet and a heart the size of texas, little bit of backstory, neither of them wear glasses but they're both blind fools, slow burn resolution</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:47:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,943</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188060</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggierachael/pseuds/maggierachael</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Then what is the point?” she asked. "Because right now you’re asking me about the time we got plastered out of our minds and promised we’d get married if we turned forty still single, and then almost made out in your tia’s broom closet because we got locked in there on accident. And considering that we kind of silently agreed to never talk about that, it kind of makes me think that you want to try that last part again.” </p>
<p>Javi's home for good this time. But things have changed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Javier Peña/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>grade school games [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639453</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hold me closer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Did you mean it when you said I was pretty?<br/>That you didn't wanna live in a city<br/>Where the people are shitty?</p>
<p>I hope that you're happy with me in your life<br/>I hope that you won't slip away in the night<br/>I hope that you're happy with me in your life<br/>I hope that you won't slip away…</p>
<p>—King Princess, "1950"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Javier Peña does not dance. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not at parties, not for fun, never. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was not the dancing type. He saved that for others - younger, happier, more shameless people. People with more to lose. Whose lives ran a path completely parallel to his. No, dancing was not his </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It was silly, frivolous. Not meant for people with guns strapped to their hips and government agendas to follow. No, he was most certainly not the dancing type. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But his best friend certainly was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His best friend was the kind of person who refused to have fun unless everyone else was. She was a round of beers at a birthday party, the pocket money given to kids when they’re told to pick what they want from the candy store. She was an enabler, he thought as he looked back on Dallas, when he’d come home on leave after the Escobar case and she’d paraded him around that bar like a circus show. Or Bogotá, when she’d flown down despite his protests and danced with him in his kitchen to Selena. All those times she’d made a fool of herself just to see some semblance of a smile on his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thought about these things as he swayed around the living room of his best friend’s apartment, his arms locked around her waist as some terrible Elton John song blasted its way through the room. A song that made him want to cringe, but put a smile on her face nonetheless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thought about them, and amended his statement in his head: </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Javier Peña does not dance with anybody but Corinne Brooke. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hadn’t planned on dancing this time, not really. He hadn’t planned on partying, either. But when you come home from Colombia and announce that you’ve tendered your resignation to the government agency you dedicated most of your career to, apparently that’s cause for celebration to most native Texans.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This celebration in particular had worn out long ago, the guests that Cory had invited at the last minute staggering out the door in varying stages of drunkenness and disarray. It had been a fairly impromptu gathering, a handful of old colleagues and childhood friends dragged over for beers and terrible karaoke to celebrate the end of Javier’s days of reporting to some self-important government official who didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. It was entirely Cory’s idea, masterminded almost behind his back until she’d called and asked if he could pick Steve and Connie up from the airport, since she had an after-school program going until six. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(One day, she was actually going to give him a heart attack. Sometimes he thought that day might come sooner, rather than later.) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was past one now, far later than two self-proclaimed old souls were used to staying up. The music was still going, but the house had gone dark, only the light from the adjacent kitchen lighting the path for their dance. Javier was shocked he hadn’t tripped on his own feet by now, if not Cory’s, and even more shocked that he didn’t feel particularly pressed to clean up and head to bed. Cory seemed to have that effect on people; time slowed down, and worries got pushed off the burner until the boiling nearly stopped. Perhaps that wasn’t the best in some circumstances, but for now, he’d take it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you for not making me do this earlier.” </span>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could’ve been speaking to Elton John himself, for all the eye contact he was making. Cory had long ago (read: three drinks and a round of karaoke ago) given up the pretense of social niceties and was now leaning her head against his shoulder, her blush beginning to smudge a faint red mark on the worn flannel he was wearing. She’d been nice enough to spare him the public embarrassment of a congratulatory dance in front of a horde of intoxicated partygoers, so it was only fair that he returned the favor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded against his sleeve, her slightly off-key humming cut off mid-song. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You only got out of it because I was distracted.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her voice sounded tired, slurred by several beers and a long night of celebrating. It reminded Javi of all the times he’d driven her home in high school, her head slumped against his shoulder as she rested. She sounded older when she was tired. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Psh.” He scoffed in jest. “Distracted by schmoozing with my friends.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Boozing, not schmoozing,” she corrected. “And only because Steve passed around that Fireball.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Same difference.” </span>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not true. I only ever </span>
  <em>
    <span>schmooze</span>
  </em>
  <span> with you.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m flattered.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should be.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Javi chuckled - or, what passed for one with him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How humble.” </span>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cory poked him in the chest with her hand, never lifting her head from his shoulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve never been humble a day in my life and you know it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not wrong about that.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound of her laughing rumbled against his chest, and he couldn’t do anything but accept that she was right. He’d known Cory for a long time - longer than anybody, aside from his dad - and not once had she ever had an ounce of shame in her body. She did and said what she wanted without thought of recompense or outside reaction. She was guided by nothing but the voices in her own head, as crazy or egotistical as they may be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He kept thinking that maybe, one day, those voices would get tired of him, pull her away until she was just a speck on the horizon and all he could see was the glint of the sun on her hair. He kept thinking her very unhumble self would get tired of his boring, rule-following ass and decide he wasn’t worth her time anymore. Maybe it was a side effect, a leftover reaction of being paranoid she’d find better friends when they were still in middle school, but it still lived there, in a dusty corner at the back of his brain. He lived every day waiting for the moment she’d tell him she’d met somebody, that she was moving away and their calls and meetings and ongoing friendly habits had to stop. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it never came. She stuck around, for reasons unknown to, but appreciated by him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you remember your art school graduation? How odd it was?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a question he didn’t really think through before he asked - a thought that popped up in his head and demanded to be set free before the logical, government-trained side of his brain could tamp it down. He didn’t have a lot of those, and rarely did they produce a positive response, but the not insignificant amount of booze in his system prevented him from worrying too much about it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cory, however, found it odd enough to raise her head from where it had been on his shoulder and quirk an eyebrow at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Which ‘odd’ part are you referring to?” Her arms shifted from where they’d been in a bear hug around his waist, settling on his hips. “The part where my cousin got so spectacularly drunk he fell through a coffee table, or the part where we got stuck in the broom closet? Because those are the only two parts I remember.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The latter,” he replied, without thinking. “This feels kind of like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cory breathed out a laugh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You obviously don’t get out much.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been working for the DEA for five years. You think that gives me time to get out?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Point taken.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The song still playing in the background changed tempo, and Cory went silent as she listened to it, breaking eye contact to glance down at her friend’s chest. She was about eye level with the old flannel she’d gotten him as a “congratulations for surviving DEA training” gift, and Javier watched her studying the boxy pattern on it for a moment before she spoke again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you...you sure you’re not a little tipsy, Peña?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He might’ve been. Hell, with the shots she’d somehow egged him into doing, he was probably more than that. He shrugged anyway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe a bit,” he muttered. “But that’s not the point.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what is the point?”  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sounded more confused now, concern creeping its way into her voice. It wasn’t quite her ‘teacher voice’, but it was close enough. It was a tone of voice he hadn’t heard since the night before she’d scared the shit out of him in the middle of the Colombian embassy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “Because right now you’re asking me about the time we got plastered out of our minds and promised we’d get married if we turned forty still single, and then almost made out in your </span>
  <em>
    <span>tia</span>
  </em>
  <span>’s broom closet because we got locked in there on accident.” Her voice had gone slightly tight, all traces of exhaustion gone in an instant. “And considering that we kind of silently agreed to never talk about that, it kind of makes me think that you want to try that last part again.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...Would you kill me if I said you were right?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There it was. The thing that had gone unsaid between them (at least in one direction, he thinks) for so long. The thing that perhaps never should have been said, that was more dangerous than any death threat or car bomb or sicario Javier had ever witnessed. The thing that pulled back the curtain on the sad, sappy part of him that was really running the show that was their friendship...or whatever it was they had now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it had slipped out of his mouth like a bar of soap dropped in the bath.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes he wondered why nobody had just taken him out back and shot him by now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She couldn’t bring herself to say anything in response, and he couldn’t either. What he’d said was completely unprecedented, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d slapped him and kicked him out of her life forever. It was rude, it was uncalled for, and the fact that she only stared at him with an unreadable expression was practically a religious pardon for his crimes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some part of him, though, knew that deep down, he had to say it. He couldn’t keep tiptoeing around the way he’d felt since he’d gotten off that Avianca flight for the last time. There was no use in pretending that the way his stomach dropped every time she said something ridiculous or made a comment about his love life was just some odd manifestation of PTSD. There was no use pretending that he wasn’t staring at her more than usual, or that her asking him to dance hadn’t made him choke on his drink. He had to accept the reality of what had changed since he’d done his last round in Colombia whether he liked it or not. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But this wasn’t supposed to happen. She deserved better than him. She deserved somebody who could take care of her, treat her like the blessing that she was. She deserved somebody who could settle down, take her on dates, make her feel pretty. He was none of those things, much as he wanted to be. He was dangerous, volatile, angry. Somebody she could keep her distance from if she needed or wanted to. He was supposed to be the best man, not the groom. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But clearly, his heart had other ideas. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he would describe it later, he’d say that he didn’t remember the two of them being so close. He didn’t remember shifting from their respectable, friendly dancing distance to a point where their noses were almost touching. He’d say that his hands felt like lead weights on her waist, and that everything in him was screaming not to lean forward and close those last few inches. Not to pull a move that could ruin the near-thirty year friendship they’d shared and break her heart all in one go. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he did it anyway, and he was a goner from the moment her lips met his. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As if he wasn’t one already. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was shorter than him, always had been, so she bunched her hands in the fabric of his shirt to balance herself, which in turn nearly made Javi lose his own. The feeling of her hands on his abdomen made his head fill with helium, and he snaked a hand around her back to support her as much as to ground himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t sure when he’d fallen for Cory. He’d spent so much time in a different country that he couldn’t be sure. He’d known her for so long that all the feelings got kind of jumbled in his head — he’d always been fond of her in one way or another, and he struggled to pinpoint the exact moment when his brain had switched gears from friends into something else. She’d always been pretty, but when had he started paying attention to it? When did her laugh start making his stomach drop? When did he start wondering in his free time what it would be like to do exactly what he was doing right now?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t sure, but in the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to care. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tried to be gentle with her, as gentle as a man whose life is far from gentle could be. She’s warm and soft in all the ways he’s cold and hard, and he felt like an ice cube left out on the sidewalk in July. She’s the sun, destroying him and melting him apart, and she’s the pavement, soaking him up until he can’t tell himself from her. He was so far under her thumb that he couldn’t get away if he tried, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s an all too brief moment, and it breaks his heart to pull away. He wanted to stay there forever, giving her substantial proof of how much he cares after years of having to prove it solely over the phone. But he needed something else too — he needed to know he hadn’t made a massive mistake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes are shining when he pulls away, and he feared for a moment that he’d hurt her. He feared that he’d misread the signals, that she’d just thought he was being Crazy Drunk Javi again and would sober up and take back what he’d said in the morning without consequence. He feared he’d crossed a line he could never go back on, and that he might’ve just lost the one person he cared about more than anything. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He couldn’t muster any words when their eyes met, couldn’t think of anything to say that could possibly be an appropriate response to what they’d just done. It felt wrong, to say anything after that. Whatever could possibly come out of his mouth would inevitably spoil the feeling - if it even was the feeling he assumed it was. The next words out of their mouths would matter more than anything they’d ever said to each other - more than anything they’d ever said, period. Those next words felt like life or death. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Unsurprisingly, it was Cory who was the first to summon up the willpower to speak. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Finally.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Javier barely processed the word that came out of her mouth before she wrapped her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with such sincerity that it almost knocked him flat on his ass. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had always been her, he realized. She was the only one who’d ever really mattered, the only one who made him feel any semblance of sane and normal and loved. She could swallow him whole at this point and he was fairly certain he wouldn’t care. She’d been around practically his entire life, and he wanted to kick himself for not realizing how special she was that entire time. He was like a blind man who could finally see, and she was fucking magic — a potter with the steadiest hands in the world, and he was malleable clay underneath them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The baser part of him wanted to kiss her until neither of them could breathe the moment she raked her hands up into his hair, and he very nearly succumbed to it had his brain not eventually processed what Cory had said to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Finally?” He pulled away and chuckled against her jaw, letting his lips ghost over the skin just below her ear. “You’ve been flirting with me for ages, Cee. Get it together.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cory rolled her eyes, not caring that he couldn’t see them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not for </span>
  <em>
    <span>ages</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you dick.” She paused, tracing her fingers over the back of his neck. Without her steadying him, his knees probably would’ve given out at both the sensation and the implication of her words. “Kiss me again.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Javi hummed, pressing a single kiss to that space just under her ear. He laughed when it made her jump. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Keep talking like that and I’m not going to put out.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cory scoffed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mmm.” She shuffled, her voice going wobbly when Javi kept kissing her, slowly working his way down her neck. Maybe he was being a bit brave, but fuck it. “That’s not what I’ve heard from the lovely ladies in Bogotá.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very funny.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He continued to kiss her neck, more to get under her skin and make her laugh than anything. (If he’d really had any plans to take it any farther, he’d have more grace than to do it in her messy living room. He wasn’t rude.) And laugh she did, a sound her brain produced to cope with the bizarre circumstances that her asking him to dance had boiled down to. It was uncharted territory, this occurrence, and she was maybe slightly annoyed knowing that she might have to creatively hide a hickey from her students come Monday, but wasn’t exactly on the top of her list of worries at the moment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m glad I didn’t kiss you when you were twenty-three,” she mumbled. “This is much better.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sounded nothing but content, but something in her words hit Javier hard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stilled, ministrations ceasing in a way that almost made Cory concerned. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>twenty-three anymore, and for all of what he’d just done, he might as well have been. There he was, teetering at the edge of forty, and he was acting like some kind of randy teenager. Cory wasn’t much younger, nor much less world-wisened. They were adults. Adults with jobs, and mortgages, and responsibilities to the outside world. To each other. Something like this had more consequences than they’d think - some of which scared Javier half to death. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sagged against his friend(?) slightly, his forehead coming to rest on her shoulder. He was careful not to overwhelm her small frame, but he let himself feel the weight of the world on his shoulders for a moment anyway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I hope this doesn’t....change anything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His voice was muffled against her hair, quieter than it had been all night. If Cory hadn’t hummed in response, he would’ve assumed he’d only thought it. His brain was moving at a mile a minute, and the part of him that had decided that kissing his best girl was the smartest course of action hadn’t necessarily slowed down to consider the consequences of said action. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And change was the last thing he wanted. Cory was perfect just the way she was, and he didn’t want her to see him any differently. He wasn’t sure if he could cope with the world outside without her there to egg him on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But if the sudden shift in his mood bothered her, she didn’t acknowledge it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re still my best friend, Javier.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t move him, didn’t urge him to face her as she spoke. They’d gone through five years lacking eye contact while speaking, this certainly wasn’t unusual. It almost felt more normal, in a way, if he hadn’t just kissed his best friend and then buried his face in her neck. But she didn’t seem to mind — moving only to run her fingers through his hair and sigh. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You always will be,” she said. “This changes nothing. If you don’t want to, we don’t have to keep doing...whatever it was we just did. Or we can. I don’t care. You make me happy either way, and I’ll be damned if I lose that just because I’m a terrible kisser.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Javier practically scoffed at her. There he was, terrified that he’d scared away the kindest person he’d ever known because he couldn’t think with his brain, and she played it like </span>
  <em>
    <span>she’d</span>
  </em>
  <span> done something wrong. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Part of him was certain that that stubbornness was exactly why he’d fallen head over heels for her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gradually, and with respect for the fact that he was getting old and his back wasn’t what it used to be, he stood up straight to face her. He wanted to see the glint in her eye that was inevitably there, the one she always got when she was stubborn and told everyone she was on a warpath that wouldn’t soon be stopped until she got her way. It was there, as he knew it would be, and it shone like a lighthouse calling him home as her hand remained at the nape of his neck, carding her fingers through the hair there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re hardly terrible at that,” he muttered, resisting the urge to lean into her touch. “Dancing, maybe, but not that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cracked a shaky grin at her, a backflip landed on unsure feet. It was different from those he usually flashed; cocksure Javi was gone, all the smugness and blind confidence stripped away. It was a smile Cory hadn’t seen since high school, when the whole world was laid out in front of them and nothing mattered but the two of them. Just like now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bet you a date that you’re wrong.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She mirrored his grin, and the arm he still had around her waist pulled her all that much closer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh really?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before she could crack back with the “really, blockhead” that she was thinking of, he was kissing her again, and nothing had ever felt more right to him. It was one in the morning, he was officially a DEA retiree, and he was kissing a sweet, loud, mildly ridiculous artist who’d picked up the pieces of his heart time and time again without ever asking anything in return.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His </span>
  </em>
  <span>sweet, loud, mildly ridiculous artist. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yeah, she definitely wasn’t a terrible kisser. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh God.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Javi could feel Cory briefly stiffen in his arms when she pulled away, and for a moment he panicked that she was going to take back everything she’d just said. That she’d realize what she was doing and backpedal for her own safety. He thought that maybe the drinks had gone to her head and now she’d sobered up, waking from a hazy, alcohol-induced dream to a reality she hadn’t asked for. He certainly wouldn’t blame her, but it wasn’t exactly the response he was hoping for. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His voice was quiet, and more choked up than he would’ve liked to admit. He almost wanted to let her go, back away so she didn’t feel obligated to continue something she thought was a mistake. She was the last person he wanted to hurt, to scare, to push away because he was a fool. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was glad he didn’t, however, when he heard a laugh bubble up from her throat and she rested her head against his shoulder once again, that silly giggle he’d gotten so used to muffled by the fabric of his shirt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck are we going to tell your dad?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aaaaand we have LIFTOFF. Only took forever and a day to get there. Whoops. </p>
<p>One hundred percent, I did not intend to write a slow burn. This started entirely as two friends yelling about Javi needing a damn break for once, and then...well, my brain likes to think that things will be quick and easy, and then it starts to factor in plot, and before you know it, you've got a 10k+ word series on your hands that you've got to grapple with. Whoops. </p>
<p>For context, this story takes place the same night as "Kitty Corner" - so, post season three, after Javi's back from Colombia for good. I didn't actually intend for that to happen when I started writing this, but it fits, so we're running with it. Kind of an unceremonious lead-up to the time frame, too, but I was too impatient to write another piece before this, since I've had at least part of it sitting in my drafts since I published Phone Tag.  That's what happens when you have a habit of writing out of order. </p>
<p>Thank you for all the support for these stories. They're loads of fun to write, and y'all yelling that these two need to get their shit together is equal parts hilarious and motivating for me. I hope you're happy with this resolution!</p>
<p>(And for those people paying close attention to the title and scene descriptions: yes, in my head, Javi and Cory were, in fact, dancing to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer". The song didn't really become the hit it is now until 2005 despite being a 1971 release, and this story is set in approximately 1995, but I like to think Cory was always ahead of the curve ;) )</p></blockquote></div></div>
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